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Saturday, December 31, 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

Another book added to my cart on Amazon: Borderless Economics (written by Robert Guest, The Economist’s Business Editor).

Among other things, the book tackles brain drain and global poverty, how migration fosters innovation and cultural syncretism and how it is infecting China with ideas that will eventually turn it democratic.

By the way, there is another book on migration that might interest you (available for free download.): The State of Environmental Migration (SEM) 2010. It's a co-publishing by IDDRI and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), edited by François Gemenne, Pauline Brücker and Joshua Glasser. I thank Ojima for the tip!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I would like to reccomend a book for those Space Syntax enthusiasts: Exceptional Space by Prof. Frederico Holanda (this is the English edition of his doctoral thesis, supervised by Professor Bill Hillier). I have read the portuguese version and it is a terrifc book for urban planners, geographers or sociologists with focus on the spatial dimension of human relations.

Monday, December 5, 2011

This would be a very nice hypothesis to be tested for the Brazilian case. Brazil had a huge housing finance policy from the 60's to the 80's with the National Housing Bank (BNH). Since 2009 the Federal Government has been carrying out a very big social housing program called Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life). I think this is a good idea to consider if you are a PhD candidate in Brazil.

"Prata da Casa" is a Portuguese expression that in this case refers to some good 'homegrown research'. So I'm inaugurating this session with a recent regional and urban economics handbook with emphasis on Brazil:

Thursday, November 3, 2011

OECD has just published its 'Economic Surveys' on Brazil (thanks Leo for the tip). According to the report, the aging of the population is a major challenge in Brazil. This is not big news, but they say it in a concise manner:

"Like many emerging-market economies, Brazil’s population is going to age rapidly in the coming decade (Figure 1). The share of the elderly population is expected to double in less than 20 years, a transition that took around three times as long for today’s advanced economies. These demographic changes will alter the macroeconomic environment. Assuming no policy changes, lower working-age population growth could lower potential output growth significantly by the middle of the century. This fall will most probably be partially compensated by the effect of the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) on productivity growth, but that impact is hard to estimate. Ageing is also likely to increase savings through life-cycle dynamics, although in Brazil’s case prospects for aggregate savings will depend on the effectiveness of social and labour-market policies in continuing to lower the share of poor households, who traditionally save less. Ageing will also tilt public spending toward greater outlays on old-age pensions and health and long-term care and less on education, but the aggregate impact on public finance is likely to be negative."

Figure 1. The speed of population ageing*

*Number of years for the share of population 65+ to double from around 10% to around 20%

Note: United Nations population projections have been used. Numbers for France and the United Kingdom correspond to an increase from 12% to around 20%.
Source: OECD calculations

This is the promo motion graphic for the World Population Special Series brought by National Geographic (the article here and some pictures here). I couldn't agree more with these two conclusive excerpts:

"But one can also draw a different conclusion—that fixating on population numbers is not the best way to confront the future. People packed into slums need help, but the problem that needs solving is poverty and lack of infrastructure, not overpopulation. Giving every woman access to family planning services is a good idea—“the one strategy that can make the biggest difference to women’s lives,” Chandra calls it. But the most aggressive population control program imaginable will not save Bangladesh from sea level rise, Rwanda from another genocide, or all of us from our enormous environmental problems."

"The number of people does matter, of course. But how people consume resources matters a lot more. Some of us leave much bigger footprints than others. The central challenge for the future of people and the planet is how to raise more of us out of poverty—the slum dwellers in Delhi, the subsistence farmers in Rwanda—while reducing the impact each of us has on the planet."